In wireless communication systems, including New Radio (NR, sometimes referred to as 5G) and likely beyond, user equipment computes channel estimates based on pilot or reference signals, and computes the parameters needed for channel state information (CSI) reporting. A CSI report is sent from the user equipment to a network device via a feedback channel on request from the network (aperiodically), or the user equipment may be configured to send the CSI report periodically. A network scheduler uses this information in choosing the parameters for scheduling of this particular user equipment. The network sends the scheduling parameters to the user equipment in a downlink control channel. After that, actual data transfer takes place from the network to the user equipment.
The time and frequency resources that can be used by the user equipment to report CSI are controlled by the network, which sends reporting configuration settings to the user equipment for configuring the report. For example, the user equipment determines the channel quality indicator (CQI), which indicates the highest modulation and code rate at which the block error rate (BLER) of the channel being analyzed will not exceed a CQI threshold, which is 10−1 for the enhanced mobile broadband (eMbb) service category. This CQI threshold for eMbb is often not appropriate for more reliable communications; however spectral efficiency is reduced when a more conservative block error rate threshold is used.